What happened
On the afternoon of the accident, a Cessna 208 Caravan departed from Gransee Special Airfield to perform a commercial skydiving mission under visual flight rules. The aircraft was operated by a pilot accompanied by 15 skydivers. Prior to the final flight, the pilot had completed three successful jumps, totaling 48 minutes of flight time. During the fourth mission, the passengers were released at flight level 130.
Following the drop, the aircraft was tracked by radar at 15:05:49 while performing an approach to the airfield. At this time, the aircraft was at an altitude of approximately 550 ft AMSL, traveling at a ground speed of 168 kt on a heading of 330°. The airfield controller observed the final stage of the approach and noted that the aircraft was executing a left-hand turn with a bank angle reaching 90° at a low altitude. The controller suspected the pilot may have overshot the extended centerline of runway 29 while approaching from the south. Shortly after this maneuver, the aircraft disappeared behind a line of trees. No emergency communications were received from the pilot.
Findings
Observations from the airfield controller indicated that the aircraft had performed a similar high-bank maneuver during a previous flight. Radar data from the third flight of the day showed that the aircraft had entered a descent with a very high rate of descent at 14:15:07, following a sequence of turns. The aircraft's flight path during the descent involved a wide left-hand turn back toward the airfield, and a previous flight had also exhibited significant banking angles between 50° and 60° during the descent phase. The 16 fatalities resulted from the aircraft's extreme bank angle during a low-altitude turn.